Ryan Garcia’s headliner fight against Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero will have the WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title on the line for their headliner on Turki Al-Sheikh’s card in May at Times Square.
Neither fighter is ranked in the WBA’s top 15 at 147 or by any of the other three sanctioning bodies in the division. Former WBA light welterweight champion Rolly, 29, is ranked #8 at 140 but not at 147.
Undeserved Title Shots
Fans feel there shouldn’t be a belt at stake for the fight because Ryan Garcia is coming off a one-year suspension for being popped for a PED last April. Going from a suspension straight into a world title shot looks so bad. I don’t know what to say about that. Having Rolly fight for a title makes it look even worse.
Per The Ring, Ryan (24-1, 20 KOs) and Rolly (16-2, 13 KOs) will battle for the WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title.
It’s unclear what the World Boxing Association’s rationale is to have their ‘regular’ welterweight title up for grabs for the Garcia vs. Romero clash. Still, it makes sense in terms of publicity to have it being fought for by these two.
Just for Show
Having the WBA secondary belt being fought for will validate the Ryan-Rolly fight in the eyes of some fans. It would look better if the fight were an eliminator for a belt rather than for a title, given that neither guy has fought. With the way things are now, it cheapens the fight to have a title on the line that Garcia and Romero don’t deserve to be fighting for.
Rolly was knocked out in the eighth round last year by Isaac Cruz on March 30th and is coming off an unimpressive 10-round unanimous decision against second-tier fighter Manuel Jaimes on September 14th.
Fans see Romero as a low-level fighter. His WBA 140-lb title win over Ismael Barroso in May 2023 was one of the most controversial matches I’ve ever seen. That fight was creepy-looking.
Rolly threw five punches, all missing, and the referee stepped in and stopped the fight, giving him a ninth-round knockout win over Barroso. It looked wrong. In Rolly’s first defense of his WBA belt, he was blown out of the water by Pitbull Cruz.
Romero is more like a comedian than a boxer, and he’s never beaten anyone good without controversy. His controversial wins over Barroso and Jackson Marinez were disturbing because he deserved defeats in both fights.
Read the full article here
